Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 42072018, 41925009), the collaboration between Prof. Yinqiu Cui from Jilin University and researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Science of Human History (MPI-SHH), Seoul National University of Korea and Harvard University, has achieved significant progress in the field of ancient human genomics. The article entitled “The genomic origins of the Bronze Age Tarim Basin mummies” was published in Nature on October 27, 2021. Please find the paper at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04052-7.

As part of the Silk Road and located at the geographical confluence of Eastern and Western cultures, Xinjiang has long served as a major crossroads for trans-Eurasian exchanges of people, cultures, agriculture and languages. Since the late 1970s, the discovery of many Bronze Age cemeteries by the Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology has attracted international attention due to their unique tomb shape and structure, and cultural characteristics. Using the optimized paleogenomic technology, Prof. Cui and her team successfully obtained high-quality genomic data from the ancient population dating back to 5,000 to 3,500 BP in this region. Through the comprehensive modeling and analysis of the genomic data, they revealed the Tarim Basin individuals represented a Pleistocene lineage once widespread on the middle and east region of Eurasian steppe, which was a mixture of two ancient autochthonous Asian genetic groups: the ANE and ANA. This lineage showed no evidence of admixture with any other Holocene groups, forming instead a previously unknown genetic isolate due to the unique desert environment of Tarim basin. Thus, although Xiaohe is only about 4000 years old, Xiaohe people are genetically basal to many populations of the vast Eurasia steppe long before the eastward expansion of the steppe pastoralist. Also, the team estimate a deep formation date for the Tarim_EMBA genetic profile, placing the origin of this gene pool at 183 generations before the sampled Tarim Basin individuals, or 9000 years ago. The Tarim Basin groups were genetically isolated, nevertheless, they were not culturally isolated. Proteomic analysis of their dental calculus confirmed that cattle, sheep, and goat dairying were already practiced by the founding population, and that they were well aware of the different cultures, cuisines, and technologies all around them (Fig. 1).

This study illuminates in detail the origins of the Bronze Age human populations in the Dzungarian and Tarim Basins of Xinjiang. The research team found that the Tarim mummies represent a culturally cosmopolitan but genetically isolated autochthonous population. Reconstructing the origins of the Tarim Basin mummies has a transformative effect on our understanding of the region, and we will continue the study of ancient human genomes in other eras to gain a deeper understanding of the human migration history in the Eurasian steppes.

Fig. 1. Overview of the Xinjiang Bronze Age archaeological sites(A-B) and genetic analysis of ancient and present-day populations included in this study(C-E).